The Benevolent Eye
by
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The inevitable happened. Everyone pigged out on lobster, and we suddenly noticed it was beginning to get dark. That chilly dampness that goes with night on the river was already moistening the chairs, and moving into our bones. We raced to pay the bill, and ran down to the boats, starting the motors, jumping in, and untying. As we pulled away, we could see the fog moving in. I voted to go back to the restaurant. My sense of adventure often gets quashed by my practical nature, particularly the person in me that had awakened to fog one morning, saw absolutely nothing beyond 50 feet, heard a steady hum and an occasional clanking sound, and wondered what was out there in the river. The silence around us was eerie, awesome, as if life had been set aside for some reason. No boats moved on the river. Even the birds were silent. We felt we should whisper. Then by 10:00 in the morning the fog began to lift, and there, anchored a few hundred feet from our island in the channel, was a 600-foot ore boat. The hum was her generator. Life is like that, full of surprises out there where we can't see. Or there was the night when fog came, so we turned on the boathouse light and the porch light. The water was very still, and we began to hear voices faintly in the distance, gradually drawing closer. Obscene language we heard, from hoarse male voices calling for reassurance that life existed somewhere, and why didn't someone help them? We answered, and they drew closer, and then spotted the glow of lights through the fog. Two college boys, off for the summer, visiting their family at another island before starting their summer jobs. They were exhausted from the strain of finding their way from town. They were also either drunk, or high on pot, and I sure didn't know the difference. We made up beds for them. Sometimes people need us. Another time a tour boat with about 30 people aboard almost rammed the side of the island in fog. They were creeping along, and we called out that they were too close. Where are we? called the captain. We answered, and suggested they sneak around the foot and tie up at our dock, and we'd figure out some way to spend the night. "Oh, no thanks," he said. "I can find my way. I have radio contact and a compass." He was pretty certain he wasn't lost, but we didn't share his conviction, since he hadn't known where he was until we told him. Meanwhile back at the ranch, as they say, there we were, the brightly lighted restaurant still close at hand, and everyone else seemed to think it was no big deal to get back to our island. The other boat had both a compass and a depth-finder. We had neither. Wil told them the compass heading to follow, and they promised not to get out of sight. That meant about fifteen feet! We moved very slowly, tiptoeing, and we had a mile and a half to go. Scary decision. I kept looking back until even the restaurant was blotted out, then gave up and tried to see through the fog. Oddly enough, the stars were shining brightly overhead. Each of us strained to see anything that might give us a clue. Then the captain in the other boat began to worry about water depth, and running up on a shoal or colliding with an island we'd forgotten about, and he began to focus only on the depth meter, neglecting to keep his eye on the compass. Soon we knew we were in trouble.
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About the Book
The Benevolent Eye
The action takes place in Lakewood, Ohio, in Dearborn, Michigan, on Resort Island (a tiny island of The Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River near Alexandria Bay, NY), and in what not long ago was Arizona desert, Paradise Valley outside Phoenix. Contrasting life on an island where water is abundant and boats are essential with life on the desert where animals are abundant and water is scarce gives a new perception of the different ways we live.
This is memoir with a message. The questions the book raises demonstrate the unexpected places and moments where God can be found. A reader says: "I couldn't put it down. . . . . the reading is easy, delightful, and with undertones of God's loving care. I equate your "benevolent eye" with the working of the Holy Spirit -- but I love your term. It is fresh!!"
The Benevolent Eye is a wonderful gift book. Used with the available Study Guide, the questions that are raised in the book make it ideal also for Book Groups and discussion.
About the Author
Lois Kilgore, author, journalist and poet, has written curriculum and studies for youth in the church. She has written studies for women, designed workshops for teachers and produced media for the introduction of new curriculum for the denomination. Lois also helped produce a movie about Southwest missions for the 1984 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA. She is best known for her book Eight Special Studies for Senior Highs, widely used by churches of many denominations. Lois' first husband, Richard P. Bell, Jr., practiced medicine in Lakewood, Ohio. He died of cancer leaving her with four young children. Mutual friends introduced her to Wilson Kilgore, a Presbyterian minister whose wife had also died of cancer leaving him with four children. They married and had one child of their own creating a yours-mine-and-ours family of nine children. The sense of humor Lois reveals in this book, as well as her sure faith in a caring God, show us some of the many places where she has found strength in her life.